Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Last Friday, the American TV audience finally got the chance to see "Blink", the episode of 'Doctor Who' which I thought was not only the best episode of the show so far, but the best episode of TV I've seen in all of 2007!

And I'm not alone in that assessment. Alan Sepinwall is the TV critic for the Star-Ledger of New Jersey and he blogs about the shows he really likes. Here's what he had to say about "Blink":

Believe the hype.

Usually, when the fanboys go into orgasmic rapture while promising that something is going to be the Best. Episode. Ever., they oversell it so far that it can't help but be a disappointment. Not so with "Blink." Admittedly, my track record with the franchise only goes back a couple of years, but this was the best "Doctor Who" episode I've seen, and just a superb hour of science fiction, the sort of show that could be included in an unrelated anthology series ("Twilight Zone '08" or something) to dazzle unsuspecting TARDIS newbies.

"Blink" featured the introduction of a new species of monster on 'Doctor Who', the Weeping Angels. Here's a short description cobbled together from the TARDIS wiki and from Wikipedia:

The Weeping Angels were winged humanoids with sharp teeth who evolved numerous unique survival mechanisms thoughout their time, including the ability to move creatures back through time with a touch, allowing them to consume the potential energy from the time the victims could have had alive had the Angels not transported the victims back in time. They also had a unique and nearly-perfect defence mechanism, quantum-locking, which caused them to turn into stone when being observed. When not being observed, they could move incredibly fast to catch their victims. However, this meant that they had to cover their eyes when in their stony form, otherwise if they saw each other they would be trapped forever.

The Weeping Angels evolved near the beginning of the universe, and were the kindest of killers and psychopaths since their method of killing was to let their victims "live to death", but also perhaps the loneliest beings in existence, as due to their defence mechanism they could not even look at each other.

Apparently, each of the Angels could only send its victim back to one particular place in Time. The one that touched Cathy Nightingale sent her back to Hull in 1920. The one that touched the Doctor, Martha, and Billy Shipton sent them all back to 1969.

Coincidentally, it was in January of 1969 in which we saw another Weeping Angel in Toobworld.......Simon Templar flew to Cote d'Azure to take part in a private baccarat game hosted by King Boris, the deposed monarch of Slavonia. After the first round, which went badly for all concerned save for Boris (aka "The Ex-King Of Diamonds"), 'The Saint' stepped outside to confer with Texas oil tycoon Rod Huston about the situation.

After Huston stormed off, Simon turned to look at a nearby statue and when he saw its downcast look with its arm thrown over its eyes, he asked it, "Did you lose too?"

Here's a better picture of that statue. It seems O'Bvious to me that it's a Weeping Angel, just waiting for the chance to pounce on some unsuspecting victim there in the casino.

It was in this episode of 'The Saint' that we had our only encounters with King Boris, Rod Huston, and an expert on mathematical probabilities by the name of Henri Flambeau and his daughter Janine. O'Bviously the Real World splainin is that the author of this episode never scripted them into any other shows, let alone 'The Saint', but where's the sport in that?

I think the reason we never saw them again is because they were all touched by this new Weeping Angel and thrust back to some point in the past where they could "live to death". I suppose I could always check the TV credits for Stuart Damon (Rod), Ronald Radd (Flambeau), Isla Blair (Janine), and Willoughby Goddard (Boris) in order to find a common time period in which they all might have inhabited via various TV shows, but I'll leave that be.

Ah, who am I kidding???The best bet would be that the Weeping Angel scattered them in the 19th Century where they assumed new identities to live out their lives and not cause any temporal disturbances. Isla Blair played a number of roles in 'The Liars', an anthology series set mostly in the 19th Century; Stuart Damon was Mr. Duncan in 'The Adventures of Black Beauty', Ronald Radd was Dr. Schlessinger in the 1965 version of 'Sherlock Holmes' ("The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"), and Willoughby Goddard was Mr. Bumble in a 1962 production of 'Oliver Twist'.

But the Weeping Angel didn't have to transport them all back in Time; perhaps Henri Flambeau was spared. If so, I have an even better suggestion - Janine, Rod Huston, and ex-King Boris were shunted back to the early 13th Century, during the Crusades. Goddard portrayed a character named Arnold in 'Richard The Lion-Hearted', while Stuart Damon was Prince Charming in the classic TV musical of 'Cinderella'. (Obviously everybody during that event had been affected by the musical demon Sweet from 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'!) Rod was the type of go-getter who would have landed on his feet and rebuilt his fortune, and what better alias to assume than the classic "Prince Charming"?

But best of all, Isla Blair played Isabella in "The King's Demons", a 'Doctor Who' story featuring the Fifth Doctor. It took place in March of 1215 during the signing of the Magna Carta and would make an even stronger link between 'Doctor Who' and 'The Saint'.

Whether or not any of that actually happened isn't really important. But I'm sticking to my guns that Simon Templar, aka 'The Saint', met a Weeping Angel in the same year to which the Doctor and Martha were transported by another Angel in 'Doctor Who'.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I think you overplayed your hand with sending all of those characters back in time, but I can see it would be hard to resist the combo of the girl and the ex-king being sent back to the Crusades. I'd stick with just them and maybe skip that whole Cinderella stuff.

Just An Old Cowhand On The TiVo Grande

As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"